The Dark Isles - (This Bites! - One Piece)
by EB-the-JOKER
Summary: Preview of scenes from a possible fan-fiction of a SI One Piece fanfiction, This Bites! partly as a gift to the creators CV12Hornet, Xomniac, and The Patient One. Cross and the Straw Hats follow the direction of a booby-trapped Log Pose that leads them to The Dark Isles, islands in tune with dreams, nightmares and memories. As they stay, the plot darkens and thickens for Cross.
1. Chapter 0: story preview

This Bites - Dark Isles preview

by EB-the-GAMER

(PREVIEW FOR A FANFICTION, OF A FANFICTION)

A thick, pea-soup level fog rolled in slowly but surely as the Sunny was on its way to the island, directed by the off-colored, bitter-smelling, log pose.

I contemplated while Soundbite's sudden onset of "snoozing sickness," which, judging by how He and Chopper had somehow BOTH sunk into unconsciousness, was some kind of ploy to get us to the unmarked island the log pose pointed towards. It didn't seem to affect humans though, so at my suggestion, the crew decided to have The Dugongs, Lassoo and Funkfreed below deck for the time being.

this seemed eerily familiar to me on SOME level, but I racked my brain thinking of what this had in common with any Goda's narrative. We'd already encountered the Rainbow Mist and passed through that dead Triangle...though this felt much more mystic, calming, and not as lifeless in comparison.

I'd have to be on-guard wherever this rabbit hole would lead us, it might very well be a trap. I started to get tired as I looked out into the haze, my mind starting to drift off a bit, and then:

"YOOOOOOOUUUUU! FRIEND OR FOOOOOOOOOEE!"

I jumped and looked around for the origin of the question - though it was more of a command- as a continuous whistle filled the air.

"Cross! Starboard side!" Merry shouted over to me, turning the ship "There's a lighthouse; I think whoever's calling out to us is over there!" And looking out, yeah, there was a faint light that occasionally flickered, hovering apparently high above the water. Luffy put his hands on his knees and leaned forward as we moved forward a new wave of mist past by us and - OK, that whistling was getting louder and starting to really annoy me!

Thankfully, from down below, Boss agreed. "HEY, KNOCK IT OFF WITH THE WHISTLE JACKASS!" he yelled upwards at a colossal Gate that we'd approached. the whistle died down, giving our ears a rest. I grabbed Soundbite, put him on my shoulder and walked up to the railing to get a better look at it.

"How odd, I mean, we were looking for an island, I understand, but it took less than a month to get here, and nothing on the current map shows any neighboring islands that close..." Robin stated, examining the large designs of what appeared to be Gargoyles hanging their toes off the top of the doors.

"Ahoy!" a higher-pitched voice called from the top of the wall, "Who are you?! Are you friend or foe!?"

 **"FRIEEEEEEND OR FOOOOOOOOOOE!"** boomed the much deeper voice again.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHHH! MONSTER!" Chopper and Usopp screamed in unison, pointing at the lighthouse. I looked at it hard, and then it blinked at me.

" **The**... one RING..."

I couldn't help but smile at Sounbite briefly before refocusing on the giant eyeball staring down at us, even in this concerning sleeping state he managed to get a quip in.

"That depends, are you the guys the asshats that made our friends fall asleep with a booby trapped Log Pose?" I responded.

"Wait...," The Higher Pitched voice paused for a moment, "I recognize that voice! are you Cross?! from that SBS show?!"

Good to know this mysterious location wasn't cut off from the rest of the world, at least. "Yeah!"

"SUGOI-ney Weaver!," I...um, my brain stalled as I processed what I'd just heard...huh...thats a new one..."Hold on, I'll explain once you guys are over here on this side! HEY GINCH, lettem by, They're the Straw Hats!"

"FRIEEEEEND!" Ginch the eyeball, apparently, roared in response, shifting its gaze over to the Gate.

"Wow! Its like a giant mirror!" Luffy grinned as the doors slowly swung open, revealing a clear, almost stagnent expanse of ocean that reflected everything on the surface, making gorgous doubles of the freshly setting sun and the sparse clouds that surrounded it. "Something feels off here," Zoro stated with a stern expression, his hands lightly gripping the hilt of his swords "watch for anything suspicious."

everyone nodded silently as we turned our attention to the sound of a rowboat being manuvered from the island the gate was attached to. not too remarkable except for _what_ was using that rowboat to come towards us.

The being wore some kind of a mask that covered the whole of his face, save for one bright yellow eye; said mask had three spikes, one on each side of his face, and one sticking out directly from the top. He wore a overly large zip-up hoodie, mittens, and squared shoes. all of apparel was yellow, tan and white.

"Permission to come aboard?" The strange man (?) hollared up to us. we let down a ladder for him to climb up.

"MY NAME!," The creature stretched to its full height, about as tall as me, arms outstretched, and well...

...

...

...

"Djon! Master of the whistle-whistle fruit! With it, I can transform my hands into whistles, and control the frequency however I see fit!" He finished before the running gag could play out in full, I huffed...

 **"killjoy..."** Soundbite murmured.

Sanji snorted, inhaling his cigarette slightly. Djon pretended not to notice, but the way his visible eye flashed red for a split second before continuing betrayed his feelings.

"Welcome to the Islands of dreams, nightmares, and memories! The Dark Isle!"

 _" ~OH, My captain's head went a-sailin',_

 _my captain's head went a-sailin',_

 _my captain's head went a-sailin', on the first Monday of last May!~_

 _~My captain's head went a-sailin',_

 _my captain's head went a-sailin',_

 _And to that the crews a-cheerin' on this, a glorious day!~_

 _~Our captain was a dullard, in every way but name,_

 _he had no cre-ate-tivity, in any kind of game!~_

 _~ He flipped a giants table, While they were playin' Chess,_

 _And was swiftly booted out the door, and into a big dog's 'Mess!'_

 _~My captain's head went a-sailin',_

 _my captain's head went a-sailin',_

 _my captain's head went a-sailin', overhead then overboard!~_

 _~My captain's head went a-sailin',_

 _my, captain's head went a-sailin',_

 _He wasn't so much liked, as he truly was abhorred!~_

 _~His eye's were like a demons, they glowed a neon green,_

 _They instilled our greatest nightmares, and kept all our workers keen!~_

 _~Slowly, and all but surely, unrest did we obtain,_

 _And planned to mut-en-nie the Dullard, at night and in the rain!~_

 _~But unbeknownst to us,_

 _We got caught un-a-wars_

 _by Richard Vice, 'The Ravager', who had tons of battle scars!~_

 _~ He was our greatest rival,_

 _and had us at pistol-point._

 _until our dullard captain had shot him right in his joint!~_

 _~Wish you coulda seen, the battle that was fought,_

 _though the rival crew had pinned us, our captain still cleaved and shot.~_

 _~Till Richard held us hostage, with a black spot on a note,_

 _and gave the choice to Captain with his cutlass on our throat~_

 _~ AAAAAAND then, our captain's head went a-sailin',_

 _our captain's head went a-sailin',_

 _He sacrificed his life for ours, he was the bravest man!~_

 _~Our captain's head went a-sailin',_

 _OUR CAAPTAINS HEAD WENT AH-SAAAAAAAAIIIIILIN'..._

 _So we celebrate his pureness with this song, that - my friend's - the plan!~_

 _~WE CELEBRATE HIS BRAVERY WHENEVER WE SO CAN!~"_

Brook and Robin couldn't help but hum along to the morbid-yet-optimistic tune the various monsters in the pub were singing along with while waiting for their drink.

speaking of the variety of strange creatures was really something, some of them looked like autonomous puppets, others like bugs, birds and other animals, and others looked like nothing in particular. Luffy rushed from table to table, asking everyone what they were and singing praises left and right.

" Hey you little manatees! WATCH IT!" a dog-like monster almost literally barked at the Dugongs. He wore a tri-corner hat, a red an black striped coat over a green jacket, both over-sized, and his borwn pants were thouroughly soaked, eliciting snickers from Su as well as his five-headed and fishy drinking buddies.

"You watch it, you raggedy-ass puppy!" Boss shot back just as loudly, crossing his arms and making an effort to mask the pain behind his recent injuries. " We fought the monster that was keeping everyone from returning to the docks, don't think I can't take you on too!"

there was immediate silence and the people in the bar turned to face Boss in surprise.

"You fought the Man of The Sea? And you _won_?" The monster asked in amazement, not even concerned with the hot hangover coffee spilled on his trousers anymore.

" _Man of the Sea?"_ Boss inquired "Do you know why that thing had my title as its name?"

The pirate shuddered "Aye, The creature you fought and defeated was a Fiend, in particular the step-up called a Fiendish. Creatures unconsiously born of memories that inhabit all but the last Island on this particular stretch of water." He was handed another cup of coffee and drunk it silently. " some are friendlys, but most of them are wild beasts. Fiendishes and Archfiends though... You must be skilled ya' landblubber. I wonder what dredge of a memoy was powerful enough to make a second-best level Fiend like that?"

Boss didn't let the insult in those words bother him, but he stared at the monster unreadably.

I needed a way of breaking the tension, then a thought occured " You have a song for them?" I asked, half-jokingly.

" Yeh! Let Captain Black Dog tell yeh all abouts 'em!" The monster chugged his coffee and went up to the stage.

Me, Merry, Frankie, Nami, Zoro and Usopp followed Fristol through the village to the shore, Soundbite stayed silent as he stared at the trenchcoat wearing creature leading us.

"The wreckyard is just around this rock, zig." He said flatly "There, we should find a ship we can salvage and use to repair yours, zig."

Around said rock was the most depressing sight I could have imagined, dozens of ships of different sizes and shapes in various states of disrepair. some - I noticed - were distressingly still sea worthy by the looks of it. some lay on the beach in pieces, some in the water and cut cleanly open, others still were impaled on the spiked rock formations like they had been thrown with purpose...

The shaken look from Merry and Frankie kept my mouth shut for the moment

Fristol smiled lightly as he surveyed the wreckyard "feel free to loot any of these ships you choose as you look for the right materials, zig. Mi casa es su casa, and I don't have an interest in gold or treasure, zig." His smile vanished as he sat into a hammock made from an old sail canvas

Nami, drooling, took off to scour the less broken-looking ships with Usopp. Zoro sat down on a toppled and destroyed Crow's Nest next to Fristol, Frankie came with Me, Merry and Soundbite to look for something that could suitably repair the damage.

 **-o-**

Zoro glared intently at Fristol, as well as the large sword that looked like it was part sawblade, for several minutes, before deciding to ask a question.

"Are you a strong swordsman? I feel like theres more to it than that though too, am I right?"

Fristol didn't even bother turning his head "I am a swordsman, and in my world, strength was something you had to have in great supply-" he paused, and closed his eyes while reminiscing " - though, if I recall, my instructor said she'd never seen my level of skill back then when I was about 16, 3 years ago, zig." He leaned over, looking Zoro over. "Why do you ask, zig? Wanting to prove yourself with a duel with me, zig?"

The predatory smiles that came up made Zoro and Fristol's agreement to duel clear.

"Lets wait until we, for sure, aren't busy with other stuff, zig."

"Fine by me, I'm excited."

 **-o-**

 **" I'M** just saying, **IF THEY ARE** going TO LET US GO **, i say we take it!** i've only felt this way about an island one OTHER TIME, AND I DON'T **WANNA REPEAT** THAT." Soundbite argued as we looked through the scraps and wreckage.

"Sounbite, what...what was the -"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHH!"

Merry's scream snapped me out of the question. Everyone immediately got up and ran around trying to find her as she continued crying out further into the wreckyard. I managed to find her first, and I can honestly say the sight was more than just disturbing.

"I-I-I-It's big-bro S-Sunny!" Merry cried as she turned away and gripped my pant leg as tight as she could manage.

The ship, seemingly impaled from the side, before us definately looked like the Thousand Sunny, the figurehead, the trees aboard, and so on. "What, the fuck, is this!?"

"Ah, so thats the ship huh, zig?" Fristol stated as he and the rest of the crew managed to join us, their expressions reflecting mine as they gazed up at it.

"HEY WHAT DID YOU DO TO SUNNY, TRENCHCOAT!?" Frankie snapped out of his stunned silence, grabbing Fristol by the collar and lifting him up. Fristol could not have looked more apathetic if he had tried.

"That isn't YOUR Sunny. look closely at it." the creature sighed. Frankie set him down and turned his attention to the ship again, as did the rest of us.

Indeed, looking more closely it didn't seem so much that this Sunny was impaled so much as it was growing out of the rocks themselves. It also seemed to be covered in a bunch of purple thread-like webs. It was also, stockier, smaller, and more tub-like than the ship we needed to repair.

Fristol stepped towards it, "You all seem confused, zig. I'll explain," he said bluntly, gesturing at the ship "This, is one of your memories given shape by the powers of the lord and ruler of this Island, Momentos. once his powers manifest it, it becomes a physical duplicate"

Then it hit me dead on. "This is The Thousand Sunny, as I remember it from the story." I breathed to Nami, Zoro and Merry. "Without Merry, without the crew members that joined because of me, this would have been the Sunny we'd sailed on from Water 7." Nami and Merry swallowed hard and turned their attention back to the ship.

Thankfully, Fristol was too busy being lost in is own thoughts looking it over to hear me, staring at the ship for a bit before nodding his head in affirmation. He smiled.

Then, in one swift, quick motion, he cut the duplicate Sunny up the middle with his large sawbladed sword. As the ship's halves lifted off the pointed rocks from the force, it simply started to fall apart, individual wooden parts and planks cleanly falling loose from its port side, and its starboard side falling into the water.

We were all struck by horrified awe as Fristol spoke again, smiling manically with the broken up pieces falling to the sand in front of him, kicking it up. "I couldn't tell you a thing about why I love dismantling ships. something about cutting through the keel of the things like butter gives me a feeling that is nothing short of satisfaction." He slid the sword back into place on his back.

He sighed as he turned towards us again, his expression calming down, but still smiling "If that was the memory of your previous ship, and you upgraded, it should be made of the same kind of materials, once Fez returns from his business errand, he can use his Swap-swap powers to repair the damage that that Lance Squid caused to your hull. Then you'll all be set to sail again."

He stacked and then picked up a bunch of wooden planks and walked past us, whistling all the while.

We all stared at what was left of the Thousand Sunny lying on the beach and floating out to sea. One by one, we turned away from the melancholy scene and followed Fristol out of the wreckyard. Me Merry and Frankie lingered behind.

Merry trembled in a barely contained sadness, fear and rage, tears were flooding down her cheeks as she gripped my hand. "T-that version of big-bro Sunny...they were still "there," I-I could hear his voice! until...until-!"

I hugged her close as Frankie glowered at the spot Fristol was standing in a few minutes earlier. we then turned and walk to join our crew back in town.

The Dark Messenger managed to carry Robin, The Stranger and me a short distance to a small but long island with a large black slab in the middle of it, a tree at the opposite end from where we landed.

Robin looked around, the island was dead silent save for the wind. " What is this place Mr. Messanger?"

The Dark Messenger smiled sadly, but kindly "This is The Grave of the Lost, a mysterious thing that records the names of those who died without a true final resting place, its one of the only island that has never been influenced or visited by Lord Momentos."

Robin thought for a second before visibly pieceing together what the creauture was implying.

"You Mean-?"

"I do, we'll wait here for you."

Robin pulled lightly at the brim of her hat and smiled solmnly as she quickly walked to the slab.

"Thank you." I said as I sat down in the sand, "Something like this means a lot to her."

The Stranger shifted his weight before sitting next to me...a little too close for comfort

" You are welcome, but, I must inform you that you and your crew are in danger."

I heard the sound of shifting stone as the slab apparently shifted through various names, Robin patiently but intently watched.

I knew there WAS SOMETHING not right with this place!" Soundbite snorted "so what is it then, **Momentos has a GRAND** PLAN he WANTS **US OFF** THE island for? **Is he a part of some** group? Is he - **IS HE THE MILKMAN?!"**

The Stranger's eye twitched as Soundbite stared intensely for the answer. "All of the above. he's planning something for his bosses starting tonight, he wanted you all gone yesterday, but since you stayed the night, and caught on that something's suspicious - like I did - he's opted to start getting more...agressive about getting rid of you all if you keep going on and looking into it. and he does run a farm nearby with hiefer fiends."

"You know, telling this to me is making me more and more interested, and my crew is strong, so why did you tell me this knowing how we are from the SBS?" I grinned in spite of the situation.

The stranger lifted a cigar, and took a puff of it before continuing. "because this is more of an ultimatum. since he's not going to act quite yet unless you actually try anything, you can leave now, and be done with these islands for good, no one who's left ever comes back here and barely anyone leaves. BUT, if you decide to stay, he will probably go for the memories of you most notorious enemies to combat you. most likely the one who, pretty much technically killed you and everyone in your crew, save Luffy and Soundbite."

"who?" I thought aloud putting the crook of my finger up to my chin to think "The one who I think gave us the most trouble was Shiki, but I-"

"YOU KNOW THATS NOT WHO I REFER TO, JERRY CROSS." The Stranger cut in sharply, snapping me to attention "The man I refer to was one you met after the Davy Back Fights broadcast and before your broadcasts on Water 7 and Enies, he changed the very fabric of you who and the rest of the Straw Hats are, turning you all against each other and into various shades of jackasses, he all but KILLED YOU and FORCED ALL THOSE LISTENING, INCLUDING FAMILY AND FRIENDS MIND YOU, TO THE SBS TO LISTEN , all for the sad sake of keeping facades of his crew alive through your sacrifices. Just to hammer it all home, you all survived him because of someone else's lucky shot."

I swallowed HARD, the description of the events were something I had definately discussed with everyone before, and we'd all agreed it was some kind of shared bad dream, and left it where it lie. Thats when I looked at Soundbite, and noticed his terrified, paled expression.

 **"BARON** Omatsuri and Lily Carnation."

The Stranger relaxed, the fact we deluded ourselves apparently annoyed him greatly "AH, you do remember, I'd be happy to share all those details with you and I bet that Captain Luffy does too." He tilted his head "Now, knowing that you all have that wretched near death experience hidden away in the dusty part of your minds, Momentos will most likely use it to put you all through hell again with his Momento-Momento powers, only this time he will most likely add some stuff to it to keep you guessing on top of it all."

I gave him an amazed look, he sighed and layed himself down "I've had much time to think about your possible arrival, and if there was ever one thing that I learned, its that not showing your opponents proper respect can lead to trouble in more than one kind of way."

I smiled mischieviously as Robin returned "Buts its just so hard to resist the urge to have a little fun with them!"

Lord Momentos slouched in his chair so far that his back was almost fully horizontal against his seat. only his head was against the backrest as he scanned the Straw Hats that had come to challenging him for his rule over this island in the Dark Isles.

"Where is Cross, memory man?" Luffy snarled, Soundbite sitting on his strapped transiever, and Vibrognash sitting on Luffy's left shoulder.

Momentos narrowed his eyes, "This is the first time Fiends have been so nice to visitors, first there was the Saul-full and Belle-mire, but that was by my own design for the poor girls." Momento slid out of his chair and into a standing position. "then there were the Fiendishes made in the image of a few of your former enemies, that helped you combat some of our actual army..." Momentos' head rolled and twisted around for a bit, before settling down again and gazing out at Vibrognash. "...And now you too, my mass-produced perfection?"

Vibrognash grimaced angrily from his perch.

" **WHERE'S CROSS** you **CREEPY CROOKED ass** of a man?!" Soundbite Demanded

Momentos scoffed at the snail "Its far too late, he's being quickly taken to End Line, the last of the islands, as we speak by Polly, once he gets to the top of the clocktower in Finisdis City over there," Momentos paused "The Editors will do their worst, and there won't be a crewmate for you to save anymore."

Luffy, was silent, the brim of his hat covering his eyes, as he set down Soundbite and Vibrognash on the ground. "If you think you think you can just take one of my crew, Momentos." His glare, made the Lord flinch "THEN YOU HAVE ANOTHER THING COMING, BASTARD! GUM-GUM - "

The clear whistle of an arrow blew through the air, causing Luffy to stop mid attack-name as he dodged the projectile that nearly impaled him from straight above.

Soundbite Looked up, and almost swallowed his tongue at the figure standing sideways on the incline of the architecture of the cieling.

"Did you forget I have a whole series of your adventure's worth of memories I can pull from? Straw Hat Monkey?!"

The Archfiend with the tree tipped head, tendrils and a flower on its shoulder readied another arrow.

"You have only yourself and Cross to blame! HE DECIDED TO DIG, AND YOU WERE JUST AS MUCH OF A CLUELESS MORON AS EVER!"

A whole volley of arrows rained down at once. Luffy picked up a potted plant, and whipped it above himself as the blanket of daggersharp arrows pinned themselves around him. Conis, Brook and The Stranger had rushed out of the radius just beforehand.

"Speckehihihi...I only wished Cross had been captured later, I wanted him to be a part of your little attack team here." Momentos chuckled, "Oh, well. Momento-Momento Reunion! MEMORIA!"

The seprentine spectre wrapped around its master as a few revived Archfiends reappeared. Hundred Plan, Foul Play, Devil Child, Crescent Moon, and Straw Hat all materialized themselves and primed for a fight, The present Straw Hats did the same.

what followed was pure chaos.

The creature blinked wearily as it came too, he was no longer drifting on debris, but inside a ship by the looks of it. His head hurt, his stomache ached and his palms just got sweaty, must've been pirates. No one was around to watch him, heh, they probably thought he was harmless.

...

 _Weeeeell..._ , the purple Axolotl-like creature thought to himself, _its not like they were WRONG per say_ , He didn't want to fight if he could help it, after all.

He decided to sneak around, The Pirates seemed to be doing their own separate activities. He wondered how he could go from one place to another without being seen, It didn't necessarily matter if they knew he was up and about, as long as they couldn't reach him it would be fine...

reach.

 _reach! that was it!_

The monster saw a rope connected to a boxed off crows nest high above the ship. However, it was right next to the pretty angel, a woman in black reading a book and the oddly dressed stranger he'd seen several times in town before. He Oozed as he steeled himself to climb that rope. This Ooze-Ooze fruit that the Editors had crammed down his throat was an insult, but at least it'd allow him to move quickly and slide up the rope.

He pressed himself against the ground as much as his liquidy state could manage and slowly crept to the rope,

 _..._

 _almost there..._

...

"How're ya doin'?" The nearby sword vibrated as he reached a gooey, smelly hand up to climb. The angel and the stranger both turned to glance at him in his puddly state.

In absolute shock The monster re-solidified and grabbed the rope, pulling him up to the crow's nest extremely quickly when he tugged at it. He clambered into the room and snapped the door shut. He paced back and forth to calm his anxiety at the situation. It was only a matter of time before these pirates got up to the crow's nest and caught him for good, and then, who knows what they'd do to him. He shuddered.

"Hey. You up there!"

He turned around, there was a pipe transferring someone's voice. a woman for sure.

"W-what do you want with me?!"...That was more panicked than he'd meant it to sound.

"Hey, is that how you talk to someone who saved you from being adrift at sea?!" the woman snapped.

"ANSWER MY QUESTION FIRST!" The combo of stress and anger was exceedingly apparent.

...

...

"We need your help to find one of our crewmates" the woman stated "its as simple as that, you were with him when he left with those cloaked asswipes."

"The Editors?" The monster said, "forget it. If you intend on following them to End Line, you ARE suicidal!"

" **HEY!** Come on! WE'VE SURVIVED WORSE. **I thought people on these islands LISTENED TO the** SBS!?" came another voice, though this sounded like it was stitched from other voices and it went right in his ear.

"...your those Straw Hats that...WAIT! where's Lord Momentos?!"

"He's **FINE,** tied up, **KNOCKED OUT,** and with a **ton of bruises for** the shit he put us through, **BUT FINE"** the patchwork voice confirmed.

The monsters voice changed to something soft as he paled "...I, failed..."

 _SPLASH_

"What are those?! Its piggybacking on that one! And THAT one's on top of those two!" someone outside yelled in dumbstruck shock.

Something huge appeared outside, apparently

"What?! what was that!? what are you saying?"

The creature explained "My job was partially to have my curse lifter by protecting Momentos and be in league with the Editors by helping them complete their objectives too. The Editors cast me aside mid-voyage when they got Cross on the way to Bladeys Island, and now that Momentos is also captured...I've failed, and I have nothing else to live for..."

With that the monster listlessly opened the door to the outside ignoring whatever the voices through the pipes, and used his powers to get up to the tip of the ship's main mast where the flag waved.

on the other, less impressive, mast crouched some kind of a Crocodile that made a slight ticking noise, apparently it had known where the creature was, and had scrabled up to a good position to jump at himon top of it, a great white covered in scars and gnashing furiously, and on top of that, some kind of octopus and squid combo. all of them eyed the creature as he reformed himself and disabled his powers in acceptance.

The Croc pounced, the shark opening its mouth wide and the squidopus reaching for him. All there was for a few moments was the ticking.

 _tick!_

 _tick!_

 _tick!_

Its okay...I deserve to die through this curse. All that work to get somewhere, I wasted it. I could not do anything to keep Momentos from being caught, I wasn't able to bring him aboard the Editor's ship and was not good enough to join The Editors, I deserved the punishment these new powers represent, I-

 _"ONI GIRI!"_

 _"GUM GUM PISTOL!"_

 _tock?_

The monster fell backwards as he looked up at a swordsman with three swords, He hadn't actually managed to cut the crocodile, Tick Tock Croc...somehow, but his attack had both knocked the monster up out of its collision course with him, and knocked it out. The shark, White Death for sure, and the Orange Octopus(?) had been hit hard by two extending fists.

The salamander-like monster, still reflexively shutting off his powers, fell to the deck as his returning pursuers fell into the water off the port side. He lost consciousness as soon as he hit it.


	2. Chapter 1 - Remin Island (p1)

**The Dark Isles - Chapter 1 - Eyes in a Mist**

 **(A Long) FOREWORD: I've been a fan of anime for a long while, I remember the first time I saw anything that sparked my interes was when me and my mom lived in an apartment complex, we used the laundromat there and pokemon was playing on the tiny tv stuffed in the upper corner, naturally this led to a vhs purchase, a memorization of part of the Poke-rap:**

 **"Char-MEEEELEON, WOR-TOR-TOL, MEWTWO, TENTACRUEL, AERODACYL, OM-AN-YTE, SLOOOOWPOKE, PIDGEOT, ARBOK, THATS ALL FOLKS!"**

 **-And toy collecting, (though, I would not get into the games until much later in my life when diamond and pearl came out). Naturally this led the way to me looking at other anime shows, including Shaman King, Fighting Foodons, Sonic X, Kirby: Right back at ya!, and Ultimate Muscle. typically on Kids WB and the like. The one that stood out the most to me however was the 4Kids dub of One Piece. I loved it, rap song, weird Sanji voice (which I kinda liked, I still remember his sarcastic laugh when he kicked the shit out of the sadly under-used, joke spouting Mr.3) and all. I dunno, my standards are fairly low, and I can take a lot of typically cringeworthy stuff most people cannot stand from around that time in the past.**

 **Then I saw Toonami, and remember watching a scene where Dragonball's Goku trains so hard that the scene goes red and he bleeds on the floor, and I was floored by that. this paved the way to me realizing that anime was made overseas, and that more than one translation of the material exists, as well as the fact that a ton of the stuff is based on Japanese Manga. It was magical, and made me appreciate adult animation a ton more. From there my fan-ishness for O.P. has been on-and-off, as I like digging into big chunks rather than waiting for the next snippet of content to emerge, but I can never ever say that I drifted away from it, which a ton of other series have done over the years, especially Shaman King and Dragon Ball.**

 **Naturally I found out about fanfiction eventually, and it just clicked with me and what I wanted to do with my characters at the time. just reading the fan made stories and running through my own characters and how they'd interact with the various worlds of anime that I liked was enough. over time though, I wanted to do my own stuff, but a lot of them share the idea of worlds colliding and bouncing off each other, not always fanfic levels, but close.**

 **Recently, I decided to read fan fiction "This Bites!", as it was a high recommendation by a friend. I can say that its caught One Piece and its inherent strangeness perfectly. It's not just following the story step by step, with only one new character tacked on, he actually impacts the story meaningfully, and the changes are interesting with Cross's prior knowledge to a ton of events. If I had a complaint or two, its simply that the occasional character personality shift is odd (Nami, I'm looking at you and your money fetished, bloodthirsty ass. seriously that was ramped up a bit too much to the point of discomfort.), and that the swearing is kind of out of characters (I mean the characters always swore, but It was always "Damn, Bastard, Crap," and the like) feels both more casual and strong here, which sort of diminishes the effect when Luffy breaks into his rage and similar impactful scenes I remember.**

 **By no means is it bad though, and I see why it is the most popular One Piece Fanfic as of this writing, easy. and it inspired me to go a step beyond and do something I'm doubtful many others have done. Make a fanfiction story about a fanfiction story.**

 **Now then, will I be able to capture the characters and how they're portrayed? I'll try my best for sure. Will I ever take adventage and somehow screw over the Cross-Brain (the group that writes This Bites!)? Hell no, those who watch me know I'd rather work with people and give them something than ruin anything they made (in this case, the former is kind of what I'm hoping for XD)**

 **In any case, I just hope you guys like this story and that its successful. START THE TRANSMISSION.**

The wind blew softly on a sunny, cloudless day as the Thousand Sunny sailed on the Grand Line. It was unusually calm aboard the ship, so naturally Nami was keeping an eye out and testing the weather just in case. I sighed in contentment, sitting on the railing with Luffy, Chopper and Ussop and waiting for a fish to test its luck at getting away with my bait. Lassoo, Billy, Su and Carue slept Merry played cards with the Dugongs, the amphibians trying to either catch The ship-girl or each other cheating. Zoro lifted his weights, Robin read a book contently, Brook drank some tea, Franky worked on...something, Funkfreed ate some leaves, and Sanji worked in the kitchen with Conis and Vivi.

Like a lot of traveling, the voyage to Seabody was long and with a ton of antics. Today though, It was...weirdly peaceful, it was certainly not _unwelcome_ per say, what with all the adventures we'd been going on as we traveled, especially in the wake of Invading Shiki's Palace, it was a slightly good change of pace to relax.

"HEY! SANJI! WHEN'S LUNCH GONNA BE READY!?"

Ah, here we went, I thought it was a bit too quiet.

"Luffy, shut up! your scaring off the fish!" Usopp knocked the back of our captain's skull with his fist, not that it really did much. "But I'm hungry, and this is taking a while!" came the response.

 **"Like YOU'RE** not contributing to that, LONG NOSE!" Sounbite laughed, the transponder snail smiling smugly at our sniper.

"Bite me, Slimeball!" Ussop shot back, leaning as far away from the living bear trap of a gastropod sitting on my shoulder as he could , even though Luffy sat between the two. "Your mad mouth would drive a practiced monk insane and running!"

 **" I TRY."**

Ussop snorted as he turned his attention back to his fishing line. "Huh, a fogs rolling in."

I _snapped_ to attention at that observation "Merry! Steer us around! No good's EVER come from going into a damn fog, and aside from the two from the story, I don't know what we'd be heading into!"

Merry hastily complied, getting to the helm an sailing us a alongside the patch of fog a fair distance away. I sighed in relief, at least this potential bullet had been dodged, like we needed any more headaches with what was coming up, speaking of which...

"Well, seems like we're not going to catch anything soon, I'm going to the Crows Nest to think about our game plan for the next stop." I was getting better at hiding tells that I was nervous about future encounter with Kuma, but the letters I had been writing would hopefully help with that incredible mess. The only thing I knew for sure was that the Paramount War was nothing to worry about now, I had no doubt that Blackbeard might still be out there, sure, but with back-up there's no way Ace could have been caught, the Vivre Card had shown that much at least, every time I'd checked it under the guise of messing with Luffy, something which my captain had been increasingly been on guard for. Last time I had to chase him across the ship four times through before being able to get to his hat again.

I sighed as I got back to work writing my letters, Soundbite offering critique on how to word them exactly. This was way tougher than I thought it'd be.

 **-o-**

It had been an hour after Cross had headed up to his airtight Crows Nest, Sanji had come and gone with a snack for Luffy that'd kept him busy for a minute, tops. The Three had all gotten back to fishing after keeping Luffy at bay from eating Ussop and Chopper's Lunches.

"Ah! Hey! I caught something guys! Help, Its pulling haaard!"

And indeed there was a tug on Chopper's Line, even at Heavy point, the resident medic was having trouble as whatever was on his line was bending the fishing pole as Chooper braced on it with both feet. Ussop, Luffy, Franky and Boss also began pulling as the others cheered, with Luffy in particular being excited at how big this catch would be.

Robin smiled and got into position "Here, _Quatre Fleurs!"_

A couple of arms sprouted and gripped Their legs (and tail) to anchor them down. Sanji came back down from the Kitchen to see just what was giving them so much touble.

"GO, BOSS, GO! GO, BOSS, GO!" the Dugongs cheered, pumping their fists into the air in a rhythm. Pretty soon the five of them make yanks to pull in the catch to that rhythm until finally:

 _KERSPLOOSH_

Thier catch apparantly decided enough was enough, and lept out of the water itself. The Crew watched in shock as the serpentine silouette attached to their line hovered over them.

 **-o-**

I pinched the bridge of my nose. Writers block was a _bitch_ normally, but now that Seabody was approaching, the stress made it that much tougher.

"YOW! LEMME GO YOU LITTLE MUCUS MUNCHER!"

I had been tapping my finger absentmindedly while sitting at my desk and thinking about what to write down when Soundbite chomped down on it. I danced around my room in pain, knocking my chair over in the process.

"YIPPIE KAI YAY, DEUX MUDDFRAGGIN FLEURSHIT!"

Soundbite was flung off, and landed neatly back on my desk after bouncing off of both the ceiling and opposite wall. Luckily, he hadn't bitten hard enough to chop my pointer finger off, but I still bled a little.

"Eh, 7 out of 10 for you, on account of the ceiling, wall, and you being an ass."

 **"BOO! BOO!** I wanna **RECOUNT!** That was flawless and you **know it, you giant worrywort!"** The Snail huffed in faux exhaspiration.

I put the pieces together and smiled, I propped my chair back up, pat him on the shell and-

 _"SHHHHHKIAAAAAAAAAAA"_

\- decided what had made that piercing shriek!

I went outside to discover a huge fish, maybe 10 or 12 feet long (so not Sea King worthy), coiled on the deck. It was midnight blue, its long body crackling with red electricity which seemed to gather in its angler-like lure; its eyes were Large and hollow, and its mouth was even bigger and filled with a great number of needle-like teeth. I noticed though, in those teeth was a indigo colored Log Pose, a ring attached to its base and around a tooth. The Pose itself was hooked by one of our fishing poles, currently in Chopper's hoof.

The monstrous viperfish quietly sizzled and cracked as it turned its head and eyed everyone on the deck before tugging on the line attached to its mouth and settling on Chopper, glowing and sparking way more intensely as it geared up to pounce.

It lunged

 _"Strong Right!"_

Franky Swung to intercept it, and while he'd managed to punch it right in its midsection, the viperfish was quick to recover and wrap itself around Franky's arm. Franky barely had time to process before the fish gave what I assumed to be a wicked smile and released a ton of electricity against him all at once, the energy offshooting and forcing the majority of us to put in some distance.

Being made of conducting metal, Franky was more than singed as the beast slithered to constrict him further. To his credit, he stayed concious and on his feet, though he was visibly struggling to do so. He attempted to grab the thing and yank it off him, but even motioning to do so, gave him another shock.

The viperfish put its face right up to his, and opened up its giant mouth, electricity dancing from tooth to tooth. Then its head suddenly lurched to the side as Chopper gave his line a tremendous tug.

"SKZZZTIAAAA!?"

Franky was pulled down to the ground as the monster refused to release him. The surprise awarded the cyborg another painful discharge. Usopp took careful aim, and-

"RUUUOOOOOSSSSHK-K-KT!"

-hit it square in its glassy eye, causing it to shut it and loosen its grip on Franky, a fact immediately capitalized on when he pulled on the monsters body and slipped out of its coils.

Chopper wasn't letting up, his tugging was sending the eletrified fish into an enraged frenzy, sending off more discharges and lighting one of Nami's trees on fire in the process.

 _"GUM-GUM PISTOL!"_

Luffy let off a fist to the monster's face, knocking loose the tooth attached to the Log Pose in the process. The monster coiled and uncoiled around itself as it recovered and ultimately decided enough was enough, trying to make a break for it over the Sunny's railing.

"Oh no you don't! We still have a SUPER score to even out! _WEAPONS LEFT!"_

Franky's urge for vengence was fulfilled as he blasted the Fish with his parting shot. impressively, the fish managed to power through, ploping out of the cloud of the explosion into the sea before swimming away, letting off sputtering shocks as it's fin poked out of the water and sailed away towards the mist we were sailing by.

"Not feeling as SUPER as I could be right now guys..." came Franky as he fell to the floor, a small piece of his metalic arm chipping upon landing.

"Franky!" Luffy yelled as he and Chopper went over to help him sit upright.

"Heh, its nothing a little repair session can't fix Captain, though I'll be the first to admit I didn't expect something like this to bang me up that good."

Luffy just could not for the life of himself accept that, and went over to the railing the Viperfish had jumped off from. "HEY, YOU JERK! COME BACK AND FIGHT! I'M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS FOR THAT!"

"Let it go, Luffy. That thing's not coming back." I stated "And it probably would have caused us a ton of headaches if we'd forced it to fight us any more."

"But it hurt Franky!" Luffy insisted

Chopper's face dawned in realization "And it hurt you too! Look at your fist Luffy!"

Indeed, while his rubber body had circumvented a lot of the damage, apparently the Viperfishes' red electricity had somehow _exceeded_ the freakishly high insulation limit Luffy's body, leaving him with a dark red burn on his hand.

Chopper took a closer look, then sighed in relief, "Oh, thats good, the burns not too bad, Its just a little inflamed and the redness makes it look worse than it actually is."

Sanji looked out towards the mist. "Good, but still, what kind of a place breeds an animal like that? Apart from Merville, when Shiki was in charge." He puffed his cigarette contemplatively "Still, I wonder how I'd cook something that electrifies itself like that constantly."

"Thats why we are staying the hell away," I picked up the Eternal Pose the Viperfish dropped, then held it up to Soundbite at his request to see it too. "we don't need any more big trouble right after something like that."

I handed the Pose to Chopper, it was his catch after all. "SO COOL! This and the tooth I can study!" It was nice to see his eyes sparkle something not the color of cyan

Robin kneeled down to look at it too, Chopper holding it out for her. "Such intricate carvings when you look closely, I think I have something to study too." Chopper curiously looked it over as well. "Hey yeah!"

"We'd be able to handle it Cross! we drove off that fish, didn't we?" Merry confidently said.

"Funny, I remember you hiding behind the helm to avoid being deep-fried..." Su snidely remarked trotting over to Conis. Merry's mature response was to stick her tongue out at the little white fox.

...

...

 **"zzZZZ..."** Soundbite snored from inside his shell on my shoulder.

"Oh, come on. Soundbite, RISE AND SHINE!" I slapped and rapped his shell to rouse him, but the snail stayed retracted and snoring.

"Hmmm..." I thought hard, ah! man, I and everyone present would hate myself "-cough-... _What does the fox say?_ "

...

"ZZZzzzzip, **Yipzzz..."**

Now I was worried, if that invitation to be annoying hadn't been capitalized on by Soundbite, of all beings, then something was up.

"CHOPPER!?" Brook yelled, I turned my head.

 _FWUMP_

Chopper, face faulted on the floor, dropping his Pose and tooth, and started snoring. Conis went over to help him up. "Chopper?! Whats wrong with him?"

Ussop essentially mimicked my thoughts "And here I thought it would be smooth sailing to Seabody…"

-

A thick, pea-soup level fog rolled in slowly but surely as the Sunny was on its way to the island, directed by the indigo, bitter-smelling, log pose. Vivi got a bit of practice with her powers by using wind to clear some of the mist ahead.

I contemplated while Soundbite's sudden onset of "snoozing sickness," which, judging by how He and Chopper had somehow BOTH sunk into unconsciousness, was some kind of ploy to get us to the unmarked island the log pose pointed towards. It didn't seem to affect humans though, so at my suggestion, the crew decided to have The Dugongs, Billy, Carue Lassoo and Funkfreed below deck for the time being, with Franky also recuperating downstairs. Conis had Su on hand for comfort, but kept well away from the Pose to keep the fluffball from being sent to sleep as well

this seemed eerily familiar to me on SOME level, but I racked my brain thinking of what this had in common with any Goda's narrative. We'd already encountered the Rainbow Mist and passed through that dead Triangle...though this felt less foreboding and much more mystic, calming, and not as lifeless in comparison.

I'd have to be on-guard where ever this rabbit hole would lead us, I had no doubt it was a trap. I started to get tired as I looked out into the haze, my mind starting to drift off a bit, and then:

 **"YOOOOOOOUUUUU! FRIEND OR FOOOOOOOOOEE!"**

I jumped and looked around for the origin of the question - though it was more of a command- as a continuous whistle filled the air.

"Cross! Starboard side!" Merry shouted over to me, turning the ship "There's a lighthouse; I think whoever's calling out to us is over there!" And looking out, yeah, there was a faint light that occasionally flickered, hovering apparantly high above the water. Luffy put his hands on his knees and leaned forward as we moved through a new wave of mist passed by us and - OK, that whistling was getting louder and starting to really annoy me!

Thankfully, from down below, Boss agreed. "HEY, KNOCK IT OFF WITH THE WHISTLE JACKASS!" he yelled upwards at a colossal Gate that we'd approached. the whistle died down, giving our ears a rest. I grabbed Soundbite, put him on my shoulder and walked up to the railing to get a better look at it.

"How odd, I mean, we were looking for an island, I understand, but it took less than a month to get here, and nothing on the current map shows any neighboring islands that close..." Robin stated, examining the large designs of what appeared to be Gargoyles hanging their toes off the top of the doors.

"Ahoy!" a higher-pitched voice called from the top of the wall, "Who are you?! Are you friend or foe!?"

 **"FRIEEEEEEND OR FOOOOOOOOOOE!"** boomed the much deeper voice again.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHHH! MONSTER!" Brook and Usopp screamed in unison, pointing at the lighthouse. I looked at it hard, and then it blinked at me.

"The... one **RING..."**

I couldn't help but smile at Sounbite briefly before refocusing on the giant eyeball staring down at us, even in this concerning sleeping state, he managed to get a quip in.

"That depends, are you the guys the asshats that made our friends fall asleep with a booby trapped Log Pose?" I responded.

"Wait...," The Higher Pitched voice paused for a moment, "I recognize that voice! are you Cross?! from that SBS show?!"

Good to know this mysterious location wasn't cut off from the rest of the world, at least. "Yeah!"

"SUGOI-ney Weaver!," I...um, my brain stalled as I processed what I'd just heard...huh...thats a new one..."Hold on, I'll explain once you guys are over here on this side! HEY GINCH, lettem by, They're the Straw Hats!"

 **"FRIEEEEEND!"** Ginch the eyeball, apparently, roared in response, shifting its gaze over to the Gate.

"Wow! Its like a giant mirror!" Luffy grinned as the doors slowly swung open, revealing a clear, almost stagnent expanse of ocean that reflected everything on the surface, making gorgous doubles of the freshly setting sun and the sparse clouds that surrounded it. "Something feels off here," Zoro stated with a stern expression, his hands lightly gripping the hilt of his swords "watch for anything suspicious."

everyone nodded silently as we turned our attention to the sound of a rowboat being manuvered from the island the gate was attached to. not too remarkable except for What was using that rowboat to come towards us.

The being wore some kind of a mask that covered the whole of his face, save for one bright yellow eye, said mask had three spikes, one on each side of his face, and one sticking out directly from the top. He wore a overly large zip-up hoodie, mittens, and squared shoes. all of apparel was yellow, tan and white.

"Permission to come aboard?" The strange man (?) hollared up to us. we let down a ladder for him to climb up.

"MY NAME!," The creature stretched to its full height, about as tall as me, arms outstretched, and well...

...

...

"Djon! Master of the whistle-whistle fruit! With it, I can transform my hands into whistles, and control the sound however I see fit!" He finished before the running gag could play out in full, I huffed...

 **"killjoy..."** Soundbite murmured.

Sanji snorted, inhaling his cigarette slightly. Djon pretended not to notice, but the way his visible eye flashed red for a split second before continuing betrayed his feelings.

"Welcome to the stretch of sea containing the Islands of dreams, nightmares, and memories! The Dark Isles!"

"Thats strange, I've never heard of it." Nami contemplatively ran through some mental notes in her head. "you'd think a patch of mist would be on any map in the last few years..."

"To be fair, the mist that surrounds us does a really good job at keeping people away, without a Log Pose, it seems like you just go in and out with nothing of note happening. I've done sailing out to catch fish before and that's happened, but Ginch always helps me find my way back somehow."

 **FRIEEEND!**

"Yes Ginch, very good, now keep a lookout ok?" He turned back to us " Now then what was this about a booby trapped Log Pose?"

Luffy stepped up "Two of our crew are asleep and won't wake up because of a blue Log Pose," He glared Daggers at Djon, "Are you guys trying to hurt my friends? Whats with this trick you pulled on us with that "

Djon didn't visibly react "Can I see it?"

Nami handed the little thing over to the creature "It does look like the kind of Eternal Pose we use to find our way back to the islands if we leave...but your best chance would be to find the doctors visiting the first main island of Remin, they make tons of chemicals, so, maybe asking our lord if he's seen them is your best bet. I can't help you with the 'why' of it."

He handed it back, this was going better than I had thought.

Nami stared at Djon for a second before asking something I surprisingly hadn't considered. "What are you, exactly?"

Djon's eye flashed green for a moment before he answered, he seemed hesitant. "I-I'm a monster; specifically, I'm a Humanid, sort of a semi-human-like creature. W-why do you ask?"

Luffy's on-edge guard quickly dropped into amazement. "REALLY!? Are there other mystery monsters on these islands too!?"

Djon answered much more confidently this time, "Yeah, tons of monsters and beings from other worlds mingle across the Isles, good and bad. But I do hope your stay is a good one, for however long that it is!"

"We'll probably only be around long enough to cure our friends, and maybe supplies, we need to get a move on to Seabody Archipelago after all."

"I don't know Cross, aside from the local wildlife, this seems like a friendly enough place, a few days wouldn't hurt, I don't think." Conis smiled, apparently she was brandishing her bazooka since Ginch started talking, but the helpful, warm welcome Djon had made had slowly but surely done a lot to calm her nerves. Seems she "unfurled" her wings involuntarily when tensed.

I went to argue, but thought a bit about it, nothing really seemed to happen until we actually got to our destination, if that was the case, this could be a good time to stall and get my letters written down. But ultimately-

"What sayeth the captain?"

Luffy Tilted his head in thought, then snapped to attention with his trademark grin. "I wanna explore these mystery Islands for a while!"

Nami sighed "No changing his mind, as usual..."

Djon's eye gleamed a hearty orange for a moment. "Hikhikhik! Great, I'll come with you as a herald!"

"So, why didn't The Log Pose put you to sleep? It didn't seem to work on humans, and you're a monster."

"Like I said, a lot of stuff goes over my head when it comes to science jargon, I don't know really." Djon responded to Vivi as we continued to follow the Pose to Remin. "Thats something you'd have to ask Dr. Spark and Dr. Lover."

"Spark and Lover? weird names...but I guess not as bad as some others I've heard of I suppose."

"SAN-ta Maria! Funnily enough, Lord Momentos said that exact same thing when he first met them too!"

"So all the islands are governed by one Lord?" Robin asked.

"Not really, He's more like the Leader of Remin's biggest city, but he does have one of the biggest influences over the Isles."

"A good man, I'm guessing?"

"Oh yeah he is! He can be creepy, but he gives a lot of jobs at his castle, helps protect us, gives us advice when we ask...Its hard to imagine where I'd be without my Lord, actually."

Djon Trailed off into his own thoughts, probably reminiscing. He drew himself out of it fairly fast, seeing the outline the island we were approaching through the mist. "Dave l-ETO...before you arrive, there's actually something I wanted to ask Cross."

"Hmm? Whats that?"

Before anything else could be said, a colossal, imposing Squid with a fanged mouth and no eyes surfaced as we entered the Bay.

"WHATS TIS, HOH?! TRUDERS!? IN MOY TERRITOR!?"

"Pff..."what was this voice?! I looked over at Soundbite, still asleep. I'd noticed none of the other animal crewmates had been silenced because of his slumber, probably because of his awakened devil fruit powers, which was impressive, but in addition he'd made a new "voice" for this creature, which he hadn't even met yet or chose a celebrity to have it impersonate.

"Cross, not now" Nami hissed

"OI HURD 'AT!" The Squid bellowed turning its apparant gaze at the Navigator

"Pffffffhhhh..." That stupid, half-formed dialect, combined with this thing looming right over the ship "PFFFFFF..."

Djon softly hissed this time "Seriously, Cross, Spear Squids, especially Squeltch here, are bad news, don't! LAUGH!"

suddenly there was an audible splash, and Squeltch turned slightly to see (?).

"Issat... AH OIRPIS, AN 'ANATEE, AN AH OLOPO'US TORTOO, WORING DRUSSIS, WOGS, AN KEREEUNG USSERTED FIS BUCKAIYS AND BANCEN A UWADUCIES?!"

I barely understood a single word of that, but the string of gibberish appealed to my immature side way too much for comfort.

"PFFFFFHAHAHAHAHAhaha!"

"Shishishishishishishi!"

Luffy had joined in on laughing at Squeltch, a fact the cephalopod took a hard note on if its creepy, eyeless, angry expression was anything to go by. It waited patiently until we had settled down, and then slowly sunk beneath the water's surface.

...

...

 **-o-**

Lord Momentos reclined leisurely in his throne, today had been a particularly frustrating time of fulfilling duties, giving advice, and preparing for a festival, of all things! Now, he only had this call with Orochi and the Editors to finish up and he could finally rest.

"We'll begin preparations tonight." A red snail hissed with a fanged scowl on its face. "The project we began months ago seems to be complete, but for your aid with your abson-abilities, we'll have to make sure to check them fully for their quant-quality in a few days time."

"I'll make sure preparations are complete, sir."

"You'd better" Another red snail said with a demonic glare, set down in a ring with 7 others of varying colors. "Its convenient for us that at least some places stay standing when we visit..."

"And why do we have to cause property damage at all? Ninetails is spending our treasure for it to cover a share of the damages!" came the white one in the ring.

"Stop bickering Orochi" went a Black snail with swirling eyes, "I threatened to make you all rot for the rest of your life." It snickered "I can easily go through with it if you forget your place in these islands."

The entirety of the ring of snails devolved into an indecipherable range of responses, ranging from challenges to apologizing.

"Quiet down" came the biggest snail, colored forest green, with a flat frown on its face. "My trainee just went to bed. Our benefactor doesn't mind an occassional rampage, or us setting up communty, so long as he gets to continue his research, he will keep us well supplied, finish the prject, and allow our civilians refuge. However, a mass casualty count will be met with swift punishment." THe ring of snails quieted down.

Momentos sighed, all their meetings went like this jumping back and forth on topics.

"Hows your objective coming along?"

the individual snails gave contemplative looks. "We'll be out looking for our target after the testing for the project is done, with all the trouble they've stirred up..."

"Lord Momentos! come out here quick, some pirates are fighting Squeltch!"

"Hmm?" Momentos raised himself out of his chair "just a moment please." He jogged away from the snails, which sighed in exhaspiration. This could be entertaining, it may be enjoyable to watch a bunch of foolhards get-

The Jolly Roger Momentos saw waving wildly as the ship it was attached to was seemingly pummeled from underneath the water. All those SBS broadcasts had clued Momentos in that the wood used to make that...what was it...Sunny?...was particularly strong, it'd survived a drop that most ships he'd known would've splintered and would've been decimated by, after all.

In any case..."Oh, of all the pirate crews to sail into the Dark Isles, _Why did it have to be the Strawhats?!"_

The three individual snails perked up at Momentos' words behind his back, before composing their expressions again, Orochi's ring of snails simply laughed. A bunch of different kinds of laughter echoed."

"I guess this means that they'll mess up that perfect little kingdom of yours instead of me!" the red lead snail chuckled.

Momentos stopped completely in his movement at his position, His head twisted, bobbed and swiveled disturbingly, letting out a light high-pitched warbling sound. The individuals on the other snails began looking uncomfortable but kept themselves silent.

Through his spyglass, he could see some seal like creatures dove over the side of the boat, the Dugongs with the familiar names apparently couldn't stand being out of the action any more. While they fought Squeltch under the water, the rest of the Straw Hats fought the numerous tentacles rising up to drag the Sunny under. the two main tentacles were fighting Sanji and Zoro.

NO! Momentos thought, Those insane little jerks will most assuredly screw the project - and in the process his kingdom - over in unforseeable ways, even if they didn't discover what was going on. and if they did, it'd probably be twice as worse.

"Will there be an issue? I think we've decide to stay, what with this recent development." the forest green snail cooly stated.

Momentos turned over, his green eyes shining behind a white mask, he thought, then came up with a plan. "Not to worry everyone, I just have to make sure they leave quickly. do you think you can keep the preparations on the downlow until then? and you keep your presence hidden if you really have to come visit, Orochi. If you can't the Straw Hats will attack you during your rampage."

The tentacles retracted into the sea and the Dugongs re boarded the ship.

The grimacing snail nodded "of course."

The white snail sighed "I'd prefer if We didn't go visit at all, but knowing Us that's impossible. we'll do so, Momentos..."

"We'll talk later everyone, ciao." Momentos hastily hung off.

Ugh this would complicate things...but it wouldn't be too hard to send the Straw Hats on their merry way, allow them to visit, sightsee a little, maybe help them out with whatever, and then make up some excuse for them not to visit the other islands. yeah th-"

 _CR-CRACK!_

 **-o-**

I couldn't believe what I saw, on of the squids tentacles shot up through the deck of the sunny from below, the monster had played dead to get us off our guard.

"BIG BRO SUNNY!" Merry yelled, she rushed away from her position and punched the tentacle as hard as she could manage.

unfortunately, that did nothing but bruise the appendage, and make the situation a whole lot worse. The multitude of tentacles returned and wrapped themselves everywhere they could manage on the edges and the railing.

"EVERYONE BELOW DECK NOW! BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES!" I yelled as the tentacles began to lift the Thousand Sunny, audible creaks filled the air, the sails flapped as if in panic. the crew went down below immediately and secured themselves.

The squid had been beaten badly by the amphibians, judgung by its missing teeth and swollen bruises, but its fury was evident before I wen down and held on to something.

The ship began to swing around, slowly, but picking up momentum to the point that I felt like I was on a spinning amusement park ride, I nearly let go before-

 **-o-**

Momentos watched the previously impaled ship soar through the air from the spinning throw Squeltch had put it through, it was amazing, high enough for the vessel to complete two turns in the air, but just low enough that the ship crash landed onto the beach, arguably the best place for it to have done so.

Momentos clasped a robed hand on top of his head. "Making them get lost will be much more of a hassle than I had envisioned..." he muttered "Well, no sense in just waiting in the castle, I better strike while the iron is hot and introduce myself in a friendly manner."

As he looked out at the Sunny, A purple lizard-like creature in a suit gave the Snails on Momentos's table a bowl of greens to eat, and nodded approvingly. "Good to see our lessons are beginning to pay off."

"Hrmf, don't forget yourself you slimy little man." Momentos irritatedly snorted as he stomped away downstairs to put his best face forward.

 **EB: This was really fun to write, long, but fun regardless. Oh what is this league of evil I've introduced into the story!? find out next time! Cross belongs to the members of Cross-Brain. One Piece belongs to Oda. etc... I hope you all enjoyed it!**


	3. Chapter 2 - Remin Island (p2)

**The Dark Isles - Chapter 2 - A Momentos Introduction**

 **FOREWORD: Some stuff I want to make absolutely clear:**

 **1- This is not official, certainly not for One Piece, and not for This Bites!, Its more of a gift for and the Cross-Brain members. As much as I like writing, I recognize I do it more for fun, and that my writing style and resources for this story are completely different from what they have. However if they wanted to work on a revision of the story to use in their canon, I'm not against it, and I'd love to work with them on it in fact.**

 **2- The unofficial-ness of this story aside, I will leave some aspects of the plot open for it, particularly regarding Jeremiah Cross, his reality and the Time Skip that concludes Seabody.**

 **3- This will become very disturbing and violent in some cases, particularly with my more villainous characters. If there are complaints about how my characters don't feel like they are a part of One Piece, that's probably, again, due to my style, and also because, well - my characters are in fact not of their world, so its somewhat intended for them at least.**

 **4- I suck at interpreting how a Donald Duck voice would sound, so I'm not confident in writing Carue dialog, but I'm not worried, since Lassoo isn't really written like Goofy, and Funkfreed isn't really written like Mickey Mouse in This Bites! much at all anyway.**

 **5- I'll be posting pics of my characters and scenes from this story, so if you are confused about how they look even with my description, hopefully I will be able to show you what I intended them to look like.**

 **6- This story will have my criticisms and predictions of both This Bites and One Piece as part of the humor. Its in no way an insult to the works, the creators, or the people who enjoy them (especially the last one, since I'm a fan of both as well). However, I CAN be blind in how crass or mean a joke can be, and if it does come across as too much, let me know and I will make an effort to fix it.**

 **7- In terms of power, the monsters are an uneasy seating between pre and post time-skip, strong enough to really be a problem, but aside from one or two exception, not entirely above the Straw Hats**

 **So, here we are again, I'm honestly surprised I have the drive to keep this up, if I'm being honest. So many of my projects have been on Hiatus or stopped, or just haven't worked out. I don't know what's different here exactly...Hm.**

 **As you might have gleaned, this is also a semi-crossover with my own universe, the E-demention, co-created by best friend and fellow arteest . While important characters from the main story (Chasseur Judge) may or may not appear (how would they even be in, listening to the SBS somehow?) many - if not all - of the Dark Isles inhabitance are monsters and characters I had planned, including Djon, Orochi and Squeltch. The specific race of monster that appears in this chapter is another carry-over from an experiment that died called TAKEOVER (the idea was that my villains suddenly appeared and tried to hijack other accounts universes thought I was being serious and tried to steal her account, which is both hilarious and guilt ridding looking back on it...). And another character is the star of a recently uploaded idea called "Weirld West." an even older idea thats going to show up**

 **I suppose the take-away here is that I love crossover stories, and I believe people always like the idea of it too. Isn't it surprising how many of them are exceptional?**

 **Who framed Rodger Rabbit and Wreck-It Ralph make the crossover more like a background of their worlds rather than a crux of the narrative, TMNT: Turtles Forever, highly favored the new series and made EVERYTHING about the older series look incompetent by comparison (to the point that the older turtles just act, so stupid), Kingdom Hearts suffers from Disney Red Tape, in that hardly any of the different universe interact with each other outside of a few exceptions. The best crossovers are the ones where the personalities and vastly different ideas bounce off of each other.**

 **things I want to make clear is what this falls into. If this were to fall anywhere it would be between Strong World and Seabody. the second is that, even if this isn't official, I'll still keep writing it anyway.**

"OOOOoooohh...my head..." I groaned, upside down in a barrel hapazardly cusioned and strung up against the wall, something I'd rigged up, along with several others for the rest of the crew in case the ship was tossed into the air again...Shiki may have been a vile scumbag, but he had forced us all to try and prepare for the absolute worst we could face.

"Ughhh...Stupid Squid!" Sanji moaned "I'll turn it into Calamari the next time I see it!"

"For once, I'd want to help you prepare that for dinner." Zoro poked his head out of his barrel, dangerously close to the hole that Squeltch's tentacle had managed to tear through the Sunny.

"WAAAAAAAAAGH!" Djon held a distraught Merry in a hug within her Barrel "SUUUUNNNYYYY!"

"Hey, hey, its okay..." The monster comforted her "its probably not as bad as it looks, we just gotta check, I wouldn't imagine a ship as tough as yours to be out of the game only a few islands into its life"

"THATS RIGHT!" Franky yelled from inside his giant Cola Barrel "SUNNYS GONNA SAIL FOR SO MANY SUPER YEARS, IT'LL MAKE DRAGONS LOOK LIKE MAYFLIES!" His still burnt arms poked out in their usual pose, only sticking straight up out of the Barrel instead of at an angle, due to the lack of space.

"Promise?!" Merry looked at the both of them

Djon's glowing eye flashed a pleasant yellow

 _"~Through Hell and back, the soldier ship, mar-ches on merr-il-ly~"_

 _"~Though dark, are the Iiilllllses, its light shines on the sea!~"_

Merry cleared her eyes and climbed out of the barrel with an unsure smile on her face, the rest of the crew followed suit as we walked out on to the beach we'd landed on.

"That was a nice rhyme Djon." Brook praised "is it a local tune?"

"If I'm being honest, I made that up on the spot..." Djon admitted. "Where us monsters come from, music can be a real pick-me-up." He sighed, but perked himself up "Anyway, welcome to Remin, second largest island of The Isles, with the biggest city!"

We looked at The Sunny, the hole in the hull was concerning, but very relievingly, the Tentacle had struck next to the keel, instead of through it.

I looked up and really took in what I could see of the place. The middle of the island looked almost covered in the canopy from the trees, making everything aside from the mountains and the parts closer to the ocean (containing more open plains and white houses leading to a white kingdom) look like the top of a giant piece of broccoli. Not the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, but still very pleasing to the eye for what is was. reminded me a little of pictures I'd seen of Greece.

Luffy ginned widely next to me, holding his hat to his head as he too surveyed the landscape. "Cool! A Dragon!"

I readied my fists, "I am not about to lower my guard again after the Viperfish and Squeltch each got one over on us, a challenge was one thing, but the monsters we've faced on the way here were abnormally tough and have given us major headaches!"

Luffy, Chopper and Ussop were far more intrigued by the green scaley monster crawling down the road than my warning. Mounted on its back was a human mother and her child, both red haired with braids, freckled skin and green dresses.

"Hello Mrs. Vennesse! and Jean, always a pleasure to see you too!" Djon called out.

"Djon, ya whistly sonnuva bitch! I haven't seen ya' in weeks! Finn'ly found the time tah come bach have yeh?" Her mode of speech was rough, but she spoke in the most affectionate, light way. "and hoo're yah friends? new castawheys from the Black Sea?"

Robin looked curious, placing a finger on her chin. "Black Sea?"

"No, much better than that, These are the Straw Hats we've been hearing over the radios and snails!" Djon responded

"OOOOH!" Jean leaned to get a better look at Usopp and Chopper "The Adventurers who help fight evil! SO COOL!" She turned to get off the dragon and run around " Is that their ship too!? SO COOL!"

"Actually," Nami began "speaking of our ship, we need to repair it soon, I don't suppose you could help us find some place in town that could help us would you?"

"Such a nice young lass! yea, we got a Shipwright centa' in town! I can take yeh there iffin' you don't mind the scaled hide of ol' Slitherwort here!"

Slitherwort puffed a little flame, but otherwise kept the cool look on his face. even as our member climbed atop him and Luffy sat atop the tip of his snout, the green dragon was very complacent and lowered his head so Venesse could see.

Boss the Dugongs and the animals aside from Su, Chopper and Soundbite stayed behind on the ship, if anything within the city also had that sleeping stuff on it, it was for the best that they not risk a run-in with something else that could invoke it until we could find a sure-fire way to counter the stuff.

"Heave-ho!"

the dragon galloped down the dirt road at a surprisingly smooth, brisk pace.

"You must be SUPER strong to tame a dragon like this into being transportation!" Franky yelled from his spot.

"Tamed? Nah robit mun," Venesse explained "Slitherwort's ah Farm Dragon, very lax creatchas that attach to kind 'earts like mine! He jus' sort of came an' stayed."

"Still, it pretty impressive to mount one of these guys." Usopp marveled, "Its not every day we ride on a dragon's back! Well, except for that one time I fought a giant ten times my size! had to ride a dragon for a few days then!"

"Oh? Really Mr. Usopp?" Jean exclaimed "SO COOL!"

Thus Usopp's tale of the time he found a small island with only a Giant and a Dragon on it began. I often forgot, due to it not being a focus, about how good a story-teller he was, Luffy, Chopper, and Jean listened attentively for the rest of the ride until we got to the gates of the Kingdom.

"-And that how I and the Dragon beat the Giant using nothing but a dandelion, a Pie, and a Chicken Leg!" Usopp concluded triumphantly to a mistified audience.

"And we're here!" Djon cut in "Caul, The Cobbled City!"

We marveled at the Marble, half of every permenant structure was made from the polished stuff, some of it was actually in the process of being polished as we passed, and the other half was randomness, cobblestone, wood, and other much more conventional housing material patching things up. The dragon stopped in front of a fountain plaza as we looked at the figures standing side by side, with yellow cloaked people(?) I could only assume were soldiers flanking them.

The figure in the middle wore a white cloak that hung off his fairly small form (3 and a half feet maybe?) beneath the cat-eared hood of which there was only deep blackness. to their right there was a large, barrel chested pirate captain wearing traditional pirate garb - bandanna, black and gold sailor coat, heavy leather boots, etc. - with two animals on his shoulders, an odd but keen-looking parrot and a small lizardish creature with star-like patterns in its eyes. To the cloaked figure's left was a much odder character. Looking like some kind of human snowman with orange hair and a snot drip hanging off his long pointed nose.

"Momentos! How are you my Lord?" Djon, Venesse and Jean got off the dragon and bowed.

ignoring the three, the cloaked creature - Momentos presumably - stepped forward. One of his eyes and his teeth illuminated his once pitch-black hood in an eerie way. "As you may have gleaned, I am Momentos Jack, the Lord of these hills," He raised his obscured hands in the air and waved them a little, before pointing both of them at us "And you must be the Straw Hat Pirates! I saw your Jolly Roger when you came into the bay and fought Squeltch from my castle."

His voice was soft and smooth, though it distorted in an odd way every so often.

"Actually sir, thats why we're here." Nami stepped forward to meet him. "You might have seen our ship thrown to the beach, luckily the damage isn't too bad, but we need repairs. We heard that there's a place called a 'Shipwright Center' where we could go?"

"indeed, we have spots open over there, both for lodging and ship repair. I'll send someone to collect your ship for proper transport."

"Ok... How much is this going to cost us?"Our navigator flatly asked, clearly dreading the price tag on this offer.

"No charge for people as world-shaking as you all, you're considered our town's heroes after all, just don't take advantage." Momentos stated firmly.

Nami blinked, processing what the short robed being in front of her had just said, and then a gleaming smile spread across her face "HAHA! THIS PLACE IS GREAT! NO EXPENSES COSTING AN ARM AND A LEG!" she laughed, lifting Momentos off his feet and spinning him around. Man, he was deceptively light.

After much struggling and angry demands, the Lord of the Hills was set down, he cleared his throat. "you'll have to pay for everything else yourselves, my city has an economy to run after all."

"Shishishi! You're pretty cool, Robe Guy!" Luffy chuckled

Momentos seemed to freeze up for a split second. "W-well, I don't mean to brag..."

"Bud dyou will, sir..." the Snowman shaped guy stated, obviously stuffed up from his cold.

"Ceril, com'on!" The Pirate with the animals on his shoulders complained.

"RAWK, SWELLED HEAD, STUFFY HEAD, RAWK" the Parrot whistled

"WHERE HAS THAT MANGY BIRD BEEN LEARNING THOSE DESCRIPTIONS, EH, CAPTAIN ERICK?!" Momentos shouted in annoyance.

"Not from me, sir!" Erick scrambled. The soldiers held Momentos and Ceril back from attacking as Erick's Lizard and Bird hid behind him.

"Uhh... excuse me?" Conis stepped forward, grabbing the attention of the three. "Where are your doctors? We have some friends who managed to catch something, and we were led here for a cure hopefully."

 **"finaaalgghhhhh-h** -h..zzzz" Soundbite snored from my shoulder.

"Can we wake the snail up last?" Lassoo grumbled. "I've been enjoying talking without his quips for a while."

Erick sighed in relief for the distraction. "Dr. Lover and Spark are at the castle going over some things with one of the leaders of a different Isle, I'm sure we can get there in time before they leave, right sir?"

Momentos "I don't see why not, I've actually dreamed of giving a tour of my home to straw hats and throwing a feast ever since the Alabasta broadcast..." He figited "A-and m-m-mayhaps...you could Broadcast the SBS from there t-too once Soundbite is cured, Mr. Jeremiah?"

"Please, Mr. Jeremiah isn't even the name of my father!" I chuckled "Just call me Cross; and I'd be honored to broadcast from a place thats welcomed us in with such open arms, Lord Momentos."

"Well, If we're going to be here a while, I'll be looking around town with the ladies while we're here, the market may have some unique ingredients for me to use." Sanji stated, obviously looking forward to it for the obvious reasons. His enthusiasm was curbed slightly by Carue "An' Iw'll Make suwe youwe behave!"

"Me and Merry'll make sure The Sunny is moved to the Center properly, Don't want him taking on water or taking on any more damage 'cause of a mistake." Franky crossed his arms with a smile "I'd love to see what kind of a place this Shipwright Center is."

"We'll go help with that too," Boss gestured to the other Dugongs, "Just tell us when we need to be there for dinner."

"Actually, Mr. Boss," Erick cut in "There is something I think you'd be interested in doing over at the docks, a Fiend has been keeping delivery crews from getting to their ships."

Boss rubbed his chin to think, then shrugged. "May as well, this might be fun." He turned toward his students "Mikey, Leo, you're with me."

"Gotcha, Boss man!" Mikey saluted, Leo sighed and did the same. "I _could_ use work on my teamwork with Mikey..."

"That's the spirit! Let's go team!" Boss paused, he looked around "Erick, you mind showing us there?"

Zoro stayed silent, closing his eyes as a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. "This all seems a bit too welcoming if you ask me... I'm gonna stick around Cross for a bit."

Robin chuckled "Me too, I'd love to see the records and archives of such an odd feeling place."

"As will I!" Brook tapped his cane, "If D'jon's statements are true, there should be a library of music for my ears...if I had any...SKULL JOKE! ~YOHOHOHO!~"

"HAchuchuchuchu!"

It was hard to tell if Ceril's laugh was genuine, or just a serious sneezing fit...

 **-o-**

The tall imposing figure of Dr. Spark and the small, non-threatening figure of Dr. Lover rose from their sitting position, as did the humanoid Masked Kitsune across from them. The purple Axolotl butler stood at attention for anyone's needs.

"I heard that the Straw Hats are exploring the Island." Dr. Spark said, opening his lightbulb-shaped hat just a tad to literally pick at his own brain. "I wonder if Tony Tony Chopper is with them."

"No doubt." was the reply of the Kitsune. "Momentos was rushing about upstairs for a little while; he's a big fan of them in spite of himself after all...I also hope we meet them before we depart, I-"

"Wait..." the childish voice of Dr. Lover interrupted "Uh, Sorry Nine-Tails...but Spark, You don't think-"

"Ugh...In all probability, yeah, that's why they are here." Dr. Spark confirmed as he grabbed a juice box from under his cape. "What a nuisance that experiment was..."

he took a solemn sip from the straw, thinking, until - "BAH!" He snapped suddenly, "It's too much bother to just wait here and not get anything done! Come on Lover, if they want us that badly, they can stand to trek a bit longer up the mountain. its not that long a cable car ride."

Lover looked torn "but I, think we owe them that mu-"

"Now. Or I'm leaving you behind." Spark inspected his nails as he casually rattled off his order.

"O-ok...But I'll at least leave a note..."

"I'll just stay and tell them, I have no hurry to be anywhere." The butler offered

"I'll do it all the same..." Lover smiled as he pulled out his writing material and began jotting words down, "I think it'd be the least we can do to leave the directions."

"Very well. Oh, and Spark; that box from Nine-Tails is being delivered to you as we speak, I think your inspection of it will be greatly appreciated if it has the attention of the Editors."

"I'll get to it when I get to it." Spark waved to the Butler without looking as he walked out, Lover handing off the note and following suit.

They waited for the cable cars to come around on the roof of the castle when they arrived. "I still think we should have waited for them, there was no reason we couldn't have."

"The cure for that stuff is back home, it'd be a waste of everyone's time if we met them and didn't have what they were looking for. At least this way I can conduct my experiments and you can research and improve, however limited the time may be." Dr. Spark rationalized "After all don't you want your counterpart to see how his weaker variant is working and improving?"

...

"I'm not weak."

"Its comparatively obvious you are to him." Spark curtly replied "And its the same between you and me, which is why you need to be at least a little bit better than you are now once they come to our doorstep, alright? this may be our only chance to prove ourselves."

Lover poked at his grey matter a bit with one hand, and fiddled with a scalpel in the other. He continued on like this until his brother's cable car came to a stop in front of them. Spark got in with his luggage as Lover waited for his cable car to arrive.

"Okay."

 **-o-**

Leo, Mikey and Boss all perched on Erick's shoulders and head (respectively) while he walked down the boardwalk.

"So what are we dealing with here?" Mikey asked "I'm having a bad feeling in my gut over all this."

"Same here," Leo agreed "after all, we believed we beat Squeltch in the bay, and look how that turned out."

"No use focusing on the past," Boss sighed. That had been a bit embarrassing, even after what he thought had been a finishing blow; For a monster to be able to play dead that convincingly was admittedly impressive, if not a little cowardly. "What's done is done. Lets focus on the our mission now, and plan our comeback later." He smiled as he pictured it.

"Alright, well, as I said this monster is loitering around the Docks." Erick said, staying on topic "It's preventing a lot of citizens on other islands from getting their various deliveries, attacking anyone it notices walking around the boardwalk and piers or trying to sail around where it's set up shop."

"Why did you want Boss to handle this?" Leo asked as he noticed the one empty spot among all the docked ships up ahead. The buildings a few blocks behind and ahead from the immediate area looked abandoned, and Leo saw a face or two from inside the windows on the ships looking out at them, The crews were apparently afraid to leave, lest they be attacked trying.

"You'll understand once you see the monster." Erick laughed a bit humorlessly.

Erick stopped in front of the vacant docking area, the little lizard creature crawled out of his sleeve. "Now we wait."

minutes passed like hours as they stared and stood in wait.

Until Mikey broke the silence. "So, Erick, What do you do exactly?"

Without taking his eyes off the vacant spot, Erick replied "Hard to put into one title, but after I came here...I'd say...Dock Overseer slash Royal Guard?"

"You're not a native?" Leo asked

"Nope, before I came here, I, was Captain of the Rocksalt Pirates. Well...I say 'Pirates' but we were more like...explorers. Found tons of uncharted islands." Erick smiled as he reminisced.

"Where's the rest of your crew then?" Boss asked

"Who knows, I got this job after I washed up on shore one day, the day-"

The water they were all staring at began to froth and bubble, inturrupting Erick. Boss, Leo and Mickey jumped off of his shoulders and head, preparing themselves.

 _FWOOOOSH!_

A wave of water splashed out from the vacant spot washing over and teetering the adjoining docks and boats. The figure that had jumped out to meet the heroes, surprised the Dugongs, mainly because of how much _it_ looked like a Dugong.

The monster loomed over them, only its eyes and teeth being visible from the darkness of its huge shell. It propped itself up with its flippers and tail. on the underside of those flippers were two tattoos of skulls.

Erick backed off "I'm keeping my distance, Good luck!"

The two sides stared each other down, though the Monster was more focused on Boss than his students, it took a breath, and spoke.

It pointed a flipper at him "So, you Boss?"

"Yep, thats me." Was Boss' short reply "Who're you then?"

"Man of the Sea." The monster said

Boss raised his head in slight surprise "Is that some kind of joke, using a man's title as your own?" he pounded one flipper into the other ", Because I'm not laughing!"

The monster laughed "Nope...but," he beat his chest with one flipper and mocked "might better suit me, than you."

He turned his attention to the other two. "Still teaching? Devoured mine. 'Cept one."

As if on cue, another, smaller, monster also jumped out from the spot, It looked liked Man of the Sea, except it's shell was blue and it's flippers each ended with one long sharp metal protrusion.

Leo pulled out his swords completely in response.

Boss froze, realizing what that meant, he grit his teeth furiously on his cigar as he began mulling it over in his head. "He looks like one of us, has my title, and... _had_ students like mine? This was going a bit beyond the pale!"

"I don't know who you think you are, being a sick twisted copy cat-," Mikey set up as he pulled out his revolvers.

"- But beating the shit out of monsters like you, -" continued Leo, the Blue shelled monster readying its weapons.

"-IS A MAN'S DUTY!" Boss roared as he charged Man of the Sea, connecting a punch to his face and knocking him back into the water. He brought out his weapon as the monster jumped back up onto land with an annoyed growl.

The Blue Shell circled around, dodging and deflecting pistol shots from Mikey as it closed in, it jumped and brought down it's blades, which crossed against Leo's.

"If your Master is 'Man of the Sea'," asked the swordsman "I assume you're-"

"Half-Shell Blade, yes..." the monster confirmed "And in all honesty, I don't even want to be here, but Master's orders!" The two pushed off of each other and went back into their clash, Half-Shell focusing on Leo, but occassionally taking a shot at Mikey, who got in a hit with is pistols and caught it's attention.

Boss swung his Dart at his opponent who hopped out of the way as it smashed into the ground. The monster was scoping out Boss's skills. Tidal Swim was helping immensely as the monster retorted with his own - surprisingly fast - punches, pivoting with his tail to build up momentum.

And Boss had found his target.

Focusing more on his speed than his offense, Boss darted every which way he could manage to disorient his attacker. Man of the Sea, for all of his effort couldn't seem to keep up. The Dugong grabbed Man of the Sea's tail when he got the chance and darted higher and higher into the sky before throwing his adversary into the cobblestone and concrete.

Half-Shell wasn't doing much better, as light as the damage he'd recieved from Mikey was, it was adding up trying to combat both him and Leo. It crossed it blades above its shell.

 _"SHELLBLADE BARRIER!"_

And Let loose a wall of wind blades around itself with a single move, they dissapated the further they went, but it was enough to blow Mikey through a window and shove Leo back a great distance, the Dugong sweating a bit.

"As I thought, your skills are really good!" Half-Shell leveled his weapon, his face within the shell showing off a respectful smirk.

"you could use more training, but you aren't bad for an imitator." Leo replied, returning the motions in kind, "By the way, aren't you concerned about your Master?"

"He's an asswipe, I couldn't care less how his fight goes unless he gives me an order."

"Why are we even fighting then?"

"He'll eat me."

"Oh, sorry...forgot about that." Leo apologized as Mikey unlocked and opened the door of the house he'd crashed into, a bit disoriented, but trying to ready himself-

 _" FESTERING CROSS MARK!"_

\- when Leo tackled him, both avoiding an attack that made an X-shaped gash in the wall, however, it managed to smash Mikey's head into the wall behind him as well, to the point Leo had to pull to get him out. The monster didn't give them too much time to recuperate, it kept either jumping to their location, stabbing and swiping at the spots they'd once sat at, or fired off an air slash he wasn't bothering to name, before Leo made dodges and small bursts of speed while carrying Mikey, as well as fend off any attacks that would have been successful with his other flipper holding a sword.

 _He's not letting me get anywhere!_ Leo thought, his grip on Mikey and his grip on the sword tiring, but fighting against the awkward state he had found himself in. _How is he keeping up like this? He's obviously tiring out a bit like we are, but he just keeps going!_

 _"SPIN ART: FOOT SLICER!"_ the monster tucked its tail into its shell and hovered over the ground towards them, spinning like a bladed cathrine wheel in order to mince them instead of seperate individual strikes.

A Tidal Swim off the ground afforded Leo the opportunity to toss Mikey to a nearby rooftop, allowing him to draw his other sword. The Dugong looked down and observed the monster spinning in place below him as he readied his next attack.

 _"SPIN ART: MONA LISA!"_ The creature shifted its blades above its shell tip-to-tip, making the shape of its spinning form resemble a cone as it seemed to spin even faster than before.

 _"Take this!"_ Leo roared as he fired off his projectile slashes and followed close behind to follow up on it. the projectile broke apart on the spinning barrier, but made the creature slide back, Leo continuing to hammer the creature's form with his blades.

 _"SPIN ART: DA VINCI STROKES!"_

Half-Shell Blade jumped, flipping over in a top-shaped position and began to advance, the apex of his attack leaving a trail in the pavement as he pushed Leo back and making slight jumps when a changing in direction was needed.

Mikey, had gotten upright on the roof and was watching this unfold, braced on the ledge, he watched as the two pushed each other back in their contest. As he fought his concussion, he then seemed to realize something.

He silently put his pistols away, and grabbed one of his nunchucks, and waited for the two to hold each other in place. He gripped the weapon hard and spun as fast as he could, using what he'd noticed of Man of the Sea's style. Still spinning, he combined Tidal Swim and Riptide to throw his weapon as hard as he could. _"LAST DITCH JUDGEMENT!"_

 _KERWAK_

"GRAGH!"

Mikey smiled and laid down in satisfaction, as tough as the monster's shell had been, there was no doubt that the underside of it was weaker. It didn't harm Half-Shell particularly badly, but it definitely knocked the wind out of him a bit and made his spinning attack stop. allowing Leo to get his bearings again. it would also probably stop using that attack altogether, thinking Mikey's attacks from above could distract it more.  
 _  
"Festering Cross Mark!"_ Came the Wheezy voice of Half-Shell

" _CROSS OF THE BAPTIST!"_ retorted Leo.

Mikey sighed, _"I'm gonna rest up here for a sec, Leo's got him covered now...I wonder if I'll remember that move, this headache is killing me..."_

"I'LL SPLIT YOU IN HALF THROUGH FORCE ALONE!" Man of The Sea growled as he grabbed Boss' Dart and pivoted, swinging him into the already-splintered docks. The monster slacked the weapon, and tied it to a nearby flagpole. He then turned toward the hole Boss had made and cautiously lumbered over. he looked down into the water below and frowned.

"I know you better than that, Dugong." He said as he flipped himself upside down.

"SQUALL PISTOL!"

Boss burst out of the planks underneath Man of The Sea, Luckily for M.o.t.S., the attack simply forced him into the air due to the harder shell on his back.

"SHELL SHOCK SHOTS!" the creature retorted, firing off some form of force from his fists, Boss's Rip Tide helping him avoid the cannonball-like

attacks. He flew up to Man of the sea and hit him smack-dab in the middle of his face, forcing it to land ungracefully on the ground.

Man of the Sea's eyes gleamed bright in a predatory fashion, clicking his teeth all the while. "Having fun? I am."

Boss chewed his cigar as he grinned "A Little, but I think we both know I outclass you. You're meaner and way bigger, but the only one fit to have the epitaph 'Man of the Sea' is the one who earned it through strength."

he frowned and pointed a "thumb" at himself. Man of the Sea snorted deresively.

"If the world saw fit for you -a poor reflection of me- to try and take my title, its my duty as a man to prove that I should keep what I earned!"

"Talk is cheap," The monster growled "no more prolonging, no holds barred." his flippers clenched as he got into his stance.

Boss furrowed his brow as he got into his own stance. "Bring it, Murderer."  
 _  
_The monster's face then became completely obscured by the shadow of his shell...both stood at attention as the other battle between their students raged on among the buildings for a tense set of moments.  
 _  
_Boss made the first move, charging in with his fists ready to strike.

"Proof of Existance: SIX OCEAN SHELL SHOCK GATLING!"

"WHAT?!"

Boss had barely enough time to say before being battered and bashed absolutely everywhere by his ultimate move in a rapid succession, the monster striking relentlessly.

Leo and Half-Shell Blade stopped fighting to watch this, both dumbstruck at the brutal display.

Man of the Sea then began to speak.

"FIENDS ARE ALL REFLECTIONS, IF NOT FOR MY BRUTALITY, IF NOT FOR THE LACK OF COMPASSION, I'D BE WHAT YOU SAY, BUT NOW I AM THE BETTER, AND ONCE YOU DIE I'LL BE THE ONLY! THE EPITAPH MEANS NOTHING TO ME! IDIOTIC SHELL OTTER!"  
 _  
" PROOF OF EXISTANCE: SIX OCEAN SHELL COATING!"_

Tucked in its shell, it rammed Boss deep into the pavement with a final blow, blowing a large amount of dust out of the resulting hole. The now much more imposing silhouette of Man of the Sea visible, its eyes shining brightly despite the hazy cover.

"BOSS!" Leo was about to move to help his teacher, but Half-Shell stopped him with a readied blade. The Dugong looked at the monster with a new fury. Mikey had completely regained his wits and joined him, one of his pistols at the ready, and a nunchuck spinning in his flipper.

"We stay out of their way, and we stop fighting." The Fiend said shakily. Leo and Mikey stared in disbelief.

"Why?"

"It's their fight, and now I want you to win," he swallowed as he watched Boss's silhouette climb shakily out of the hole to meet the increasingly monstrous looking form of Man of the Sea "- because I no longer respect my master, but fear him and what he'll do to me now that he's got that bloodlust."

The three continued to watch the battle in uncomfortable silence.

"Come, Boss!" Man of the Sea demanded "Get up, I'll beat you down as needed!"  
It picked up the cigar Boss had dropped in its assault, and ate it, as if it proved something to do so.

Boss stood up bruised in both body and pride, there were cracks and chips everywhere on his shell. "Sorry to say that, what you have isn't good enough to beat me, Murderer."

The creature laughed "~Bluffing.~"

"Am I?" Boss asked as he popped his arm into place. The creature stopped laughing, but its eyes seemed to gleam brighter. "That was very impressive, you showed me how to improve my technique, and you are a masterful opponent; but I'm sorry to tell ya' - all over again - That its a Man's Duty to punish a lowly -"

Man of The Seas teeth ground against each other audibly

"- Idiotic -"

It waved its arms in an outstreached stance, clearing the dust around them

"- Pathetic - "

It got into its stance.

"- Student-killing betrayal of everything I stand for!" Boss got into his own stance again more determined than ever and took a deep breath. _concentrate... You know what to do now...He's sacrificed power to make it fast, just wait for that single moment_

"I'll mulch you this time! _PROOF OF EXISTANCE: SIX OCEAN GAAAAAAAAAATLIIIIIIIING!"_

 _"Shell Body."_

The rapid hits were far more violent this time, smashing in at every possible angle upon boss, the damage severely lessened by Boss' technique. it continued for five minutes straight when-

 _" PROOF OF EXISTAAANCE! SIXXXXX OOOOCEAN SSSSHEEEEEELL COOOOOOAAAATIIIING!_

 _"FULL-SHELL STYYYYLE!: SIXXXXXXX OOOOOOCEAN GUUUUUUUUUUUUN!"_

Boss put his absolute all into a single strike, there was no reason to pull a punch against this thing. He stopped the shell dead in font of him with a mighty shockwave.

Time seemed to freeze, until, inexplicably-

 _SHHK-BAM!_

-the underside of the shell erupted in a bright blue explosion. both the mantle of the shell and Boss landed with a thud on the ground.

"Boss!" both Leo, Mikey and the returning Erick rushed over to help their master up as Half-Shell Blade looked over the remains of the thing he'd once called Master. He said nothing as he bowed to his equals and better, picked up the shell and jumped into the empty spot in the Docking Area.

 **-o-**

I wasn't sure what to say when we arrived at the castle, the large, somewhat overgrown, but complete buildings and gardens on the grounds were beautiful. I noticed movement and watched something covered in plant matter stumble into the woods past a fence.

"Blasted Pollen Hollows..." The stuffy voice of Ceril growled and sniffed, "As if my condition wasn't bad enough..."

The trip was surprisingly uneventful, no civilians in town showed any awe or fear as we passed by with their ruler and a group of soldiers, some walked alongside him and asked for some general advice and about who we are, and then in the latter case, gushed about and thanked us for how much we were shaking up the world outside the isles.

"This is to friendly, right?" Robin asked, clearly unsure of what the answer should've been.

"Honestly, out of a lot of the places we've been to, this one seems the most...low key normal." Zoro also seemed confused.

"Yeah, Monsters aside, There's no one overly hating or celebrating us..." I agreed "Still we should be weary, remember why we're here after all."

"True," Brook agreed, "still Its nice having no one panicking, some people even asked how I eat, knowing I'm a skeleton!"

"Does that mean they've seen still moving skeletons, I wonder?" Robin asked

"Maybe they pieced it together from the televised broadcast at Shiki's Palace." I rationalized. "Still, it's strange no one stared at you in shock, or hesitated in approaching you."

slow realization dawned in everyone as I said this, and suddenly the lax atmosphere seemed more suspicious than ever.

Soldiers gradually broke off from our group to attend to various other duties around the castle, eventually leaving us with just a soldier carting the sleeping Chopper for us, Momentos and Ceril. "Not long now, but there is someone who wants to meet you before we get to the meeting room, if you don't mind it." the former stated, his warbling voice seemed lighter than when he'd introduced himself to us somehow.

We arrived at a large, ornate door in an otherwise long featureless hallway/balcony, overlooking the garden below. on it was a plaque reading "Jinn: Mystic, Records Keeper and Fruit Researcher"

Pushing on the large door, Momentos opened a smaller, much more managable door built into it. Robin couldn't help but laugh a little at the cartoonish reveal as she entered.

"Hello?" Came a high-pitched voice from a messy pile of papers "My lord, you brought the four I...FOUR-saw coming here first?"

"Seriously, you, Djon, and a whole mess of others have got to stop with the puns." Momentos said, his warbling stopping to cement a flat delivery.

"You should know it's in our nature to make these qips, its the Will of Our World, and its not like you are guiltless of lame puns either, my Lord." The speaker stepped out into view, and what I saw surprised me.

The being that stood before the four of us was definately inhuman, Momentos and Djon could have the excuse of having a...unique, shape. The other creatures - Squeltch, the Viperfish, Slitherwort - I suspected were just native animals (with Soundbite's abilities being limited to already established or crudely made voices); This creature before me was just giving me an otherworldly vibe I couldn't place, and her voice was her own.

Big curious insectoid eyes and antennae set in black peeked out from in between a some kind of a turban and a scarf; her colorful, patterned wings were leathery looking as opposed to covered in fluffy-looking scales; Four stocky legs under her cloak came to crab-like points that made audible echoing clicks as she calmly walked over to us. Despite the squat figure and having to angle her head to look at our faces, she matched my height at least, including the turban she had on her head.

"AH! A BUG MONSTER!" Brook shrieked like a teenage girl, busy looking at the section of the Records labeled with the sign "Music compositions, and Media" before turning his attention to what was happening.

"Sorry to startle you, Brook. Let me introduce myself, I am Jinn, and if you read the plaque outside, you know what I do for the Lord of These Hills."

"It's nice to meet you Miss Jinn." Robin replied with a small polite bow.

"The pleasures all mine to be in the presence of such heroes, for what you've done, and what you will do." Jinn chuckled

"Why did you want to meet us? I'm guessing there's more to this requested visit than meeting us right?"

"Sharp (in many ways but one) and to the point as always, Good Zoro." Jinn confirmed "If its not too much trouble, once you are able, me and my assisstant - Mayhue - would like to do fortunetelling on the SBS for you. It's so rare that I can have an audience, and Mayhue would love to demonstrate to his idols."

I thought about it, and smiled "I think that can be arranged, but i can't help but feel there's more to this...not that I think you're suspicious."

"Very perceptive! And I understand. Where we're from, humans and monsters live side-by-side, and it's a struggle to tell the good eggs from the bad at many times." Jinn nodded in agreement.

"Well, if that's everything," Momentos cut in, "We should head up to the Meeting Room, Spark gets impatient easily and may leave soon."

Soundbite grumbled incoherently, but his tone made it clear he was getting slightly annoyed.

We went up a flight of stairs after exiting Jinn's room, Robin and Brook staying behind to look at the records for a bit longer.

We arrived in a large oval room with a long mat and many through pillows for seating. A strange purple salamander-like butler came to grreet us, giving a bow and explaining the situation.

"I apologize." It handed a letter to me "Dr. Lover said to give you this, it should explain."

 **-o-**

Dr. Spark sat at his lab desk, curious about the box sitting there from Ninetails.

The tag read: I found this strange substance winding its way to our castle on Blade Island. It might have something to do with the outbreak of Hollows, and I thought you could analyze and tell me what it is. be careful with it.

~3 Ninetails

Dr. Spark sighed "I may as well get on with this." He sat there for several minutes, figeting with an antler. Something about this box was...unnerving

...

...

...

 _His eyes widened as he lifted the lid._

 **NEXT CHAPTER - Cure-iouser and Cure-iouser**

 **SOMETHING'S WRONG, HOLLOWS INFEST and a FIENDISH DISCOVERY.**


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